Letters to the Editor

        
  Tweet
  
  Pin It
  
Share

« Stumped on the Common | The Angry Inch rocked! »

Friday, July 24, 2009

Park Commons shows elsewhere

If the city keeps promoting big concerts in public spaces, there will be no Common ground left in HRM.

Posted by Letters editor on Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 12:26 PM

To the editor,

I want to add my concerns over the recent appropriation of the Commons on both the Dartmouth and Halifax sides of the harbour.

I applaud the recent actions of Dartmouth High students and other community members for defending the Dartmouth Commons, which are again facing piecemeal diminishment.

In Halifax, the KISS and McCartney concerts are so recent that the damage to the Halifax Common is yet to be determined. Let us hope the damage is reparable, if not immediately, then in less than a year. I took a look Sunday morning, post-KISS, and there appears to be a great deal of so-called remediation to do. (Remediation is corporate/state doublespeak for significant environmental damage that they say they are aware of and willing to discuss repairing.)

Now is the test of the commitment of the promoters and supporters of these events to the local environment, the Commons and the obvious next steps. Few community activists I know are confident that the Commons will be quickly returned to full public access. There appear to be several large sections of grass that have gone missing---understandable given the amount of heavy equipment.

There are other appropriate sites for concerts of this type, like the underutilized Exhibition Park. Most cities have such a place and they actually use them for concerts. Organizationally, Metro Transit's shuttle buses would probably find it easier to go there than to the central Commons.

If the local movers and shakers decide to continue using the Commons as an entertainment venue then they should at least have the guts to change the name---it's no longer a Commons. —Paul Shreenan, Green Party of Canada, Dartmouth Cole-Harbour

Survey Asks

Do you agree with Halifax's school board cutting 152 teachers?

Comments (3)

Showing 1-3 of 3

Add a comment

I agree with Paul on this one. These open air concerts are becoming more popular all the time. I think that a natural ampitheatre should be constructed, where they could have some permanent things in place such as fences to direct traffic and towers to mount sound equipment, etc... Also parking in downtown halifax for these types of events is an absolute nightmare. I think a good spot would be near the new Dartmouth Crossing area. There is a lot of land to construct this facility and a parking facility to go with it. The area has many exits and entrances and their are a few divided highways to come-and-go easily. Technically this facility would be in Dartmouth and not Halifax, but there is not really any other land in and around halifax to have these events, therefore the outskirts are becoming the only answer. And really it is not very far from Halifax.

report

dislike

Posted by Crotch Waffle on 11/20/2009 at 12:24 PM

dear Alan
all halicentral folks call it the Commons...not the Common...grammer is one thing, calling it what it is called is another...

report

dislike

Posted by susanle63 on 09/02/2009 at 2:14 PM

Grammar Paul me son! It is The 'Common'. No 's' is needed. The Common land has been shortened to simply "The Common". One can argue that The City of Halifax has so chopped up the original Common that we have a number of pieces of the Common to be found from Cunard Street south to beyond the Children's hospital. And it is 'The Friends of the Common' that asks you to join them in defending these pieces of the Common.

A good letter - grammar be damned!

Alan Ruffman